


Sunday, Bloody Sunday

by Irony_Rocks



Series: Coyote SGA [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-15
Updated: 2007-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irony_Rocks/pseuds/Irony_Rocks
Summary: coyote_sga fic. With emotions running high, John is trapped in one day and must find a way out - or spend the rest of his life watching Elizabeth die.





	Sunday, Bloody Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in coyote_sga verse, a total AU where all the characters have mutant superpowers. (Think Heroes more than The X Men.) You should be familiar with the premise of this verse before reading this fic, otherwise you'll be lost. ;) (i.e. read Genesis).  
> A/N #2: This fic was inspired by Supernatural's "Groundhogs Day" style episode, The Mystery Spot. The title is from a song by U2, of the same name. (So, yes, Sunday actually has nothing to do with the SGA 3.17 episode.)

—x—

  
  
The bar is a dive – sooty windows, sticky countertop, and a third of its patrons eyeing John with as much friendliness as a pit-bull greeting the mailman. This isn’t the type of place that welcomes newcomers – especially his _kind_. John barely gives them a second glance, dropping heavily onto a faded-green stool and slapping a wad of cash onto the counter.  
  
“You look like shit,” says the bartender, a bulky man nearly twice his size.   
  
“Guess that means I’ll fit in perfectly here.”  
  
Billy snorts, then nods quietly at the bikers playing pool in the back. The men return their focus to their game, and the bartender tosses a dingy towel over his left shoulder. “What’s your poison?”  
  
Thirty seconds later, there’s a shot of Jack Daniel's in front of him. He downs it, feeling the burn of alcohol coat his throat and settle like acid in his stomach.   
  
“Again,” he grunts, tapping the countertop twice. “Keep ‘em coming.”  
  
It’s past midnight before the door swings open and Cameron walks in, looking even more out of his element here than John. The dark trench coat is slick with rain as Cameron shrugs it off and hangs it in the corner.   
  
Cameron settles heavily into the seat next to him, exhausted. “The polite thing to do is to wait until we can both get drunk. Been in fucking meetings for the last few hours.”  
  
John snorts a bitter laugh. He palms his latest refill and slides it towards the other man. Cameron pauses only briefly before lifting the shot and slamming it back.   
  
John motions for another round.   
  
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Cameron says, always, always the first two things out of his mouth. “It wasn’t your fault that Elizabeth died.”  
  
Today John watched the woman he loved die and it still wasn't the worst day of his life. Hell, it wasn't even in the top three. John slants a glance towards Cameron, and his eyes dim and glow yellow – not a flash, but a subtle shift that takes a few seconds to fully transform.   
  
“What?” Cameron asks.  
  
“What would you say if I told you Elizabeth’s not dead? At least, not really. Not in any lasting way.”  
  
Cameron pauses, thrown for a second, then shakes his head. “I’d say you’ve had too much to drink, man. Or clearly not enough.”  
  
John knew he was going to say that.  
  


—x—

  
  
“John,” Elizabeth says, in the morning light by the portside window of the _Nautical_. “You’re not making any sense.”  
  
“Listen to me,” he urges in a desperate whisper, then hears the faint footsteps of others around the corridor. He grabs Elizabeth by the elbow and leads her out the door, quickly sidestepping Teyla and two crewmembers that are coming in from the other end of the vessel. “I know what I’m saying sounds insane.”  
  
Elizabeth doesn’t deny it.  
  
“But you have to trust me. You have to listen to everything I say.”  
  
“Why? What’s going to happen?”  
  
He stops short, choking on the words. How is he supposed to convince her he’s lived this day before? This Sunday; this fucking Sunday. He doesn’t even believe it himself. But he’s seen stranger things, right? For a man that looks in the mirror and sometimes sees blue scales and foreign eyes, there isn’t much John isn’t willing to believe.   
  
A mutant world has permanently erased the definition of impossible.   
  
“John?” Elizabeth says, dropping her voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”  
  
“Yesterday,” he finally admits. “You died.”  
  


—x—

  
  
Her body is cold and her face frozen, but she looks peaceful, almost asleep. The medic zips the bag shut, metal teeth closing in and covering her up in a blanket of black plastic. The forensic team has already done the first sweep of the area, and beyond the cordoned yellow tape he can see Rodney and Ronon standing at the edge of the crowd. (Teyla slipped in undetected long ago; her powers come in handy that way.) He gives them a nod, and returns his gaze back to the man with the FBI-insignia windbreaker and glasses.  
  
“Is that it?” Agent Caldwell asks, eyes fixed on his notepad. “Anything else you want to add?”  
  
Shot twice, execution style, in the back of the head. And here he thought the vest would change things.  
  
“She wasn’t wearing Kevlar yesterday,” John says, and the man looks at him as if he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has.  
  
“There’s nothing you could have done,” Agent Caldwell offers awkwardly. “You couldn’t have anticipated something like this.”  
  
“No,” he agrees, lifting himself to his feet, “not something like this. It happened differently yesterday.”  
  
“What?” Caldwell demands, but John just walks away  
  


—x—

  
  
“Do you know what the definition of insanity is?” John asks.  
  
Kate tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “I think everybody has heard that one. The most popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but… well, it’s a common misconception. That definition isn’t even in the dictionary.”  
  
“It isn’t?”  
  
“No,” Kate informs him. “It’s a quote by Benjamin Franklin.”  
  
John pauses; he never knew that. “Doesn’t make it untrue.”  
  
“I suppose.”  
  
John leans back in his chair, lifting the front two legs off the ground. “Then what’s your definition of insanity?”  
  
“Clinically speaking, there is no one definition.” Kate pauses. “Why? You concerned about your mental health, Mr. Sheppard?”  
  
He shrugs and shakes his head. “No. Not by Franklin’s definition, anyway.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
His eyes grow dark. “Because I always try something new.”  
  


—x—

  
  
“No, no, no!” Radek persists, taking off his glasses to scrub a hand over his face. “It isn’t like my gift at all. I can’t help with this! It’s as different to what I do as… the ability to read minds compares to the ability to plant commands in another person’s consciousness. They function on the same basic principles, but the elements are different. They control different aspects. I cannot tell you how this other mutant is forcing you into—”  
  
“I know all of this,” John cuts in forcibly.   
  
He’s had this conversation once or twice.  
  
Rodney snaps at him. “Well, we don’t! So excuse us for a moment while those non-harebrained, hair-gelled members of the operation figure out what the hell is going on.”  
  
But they don’t; they never do.  
  


—x—

  
  
John shifts the car into reverse and pulls out of the parking lot. “I still think we should have stayed on the _Nautical_ ,” he warns. “Too many factors out here unaccounted for.”  
  
“I’m not going to hide from the world,” Elizabeth counters. “Besides, we’re only going to find out answers by asking questions, and of the two of us, I’m the one with the badge.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be out in the field when you have a bull’s-eye on your back.”  
  
“I’m not a damsel-in-distress, John.”  
  
“I know—”  
  
“Then stop treating me like one.”  
  
He shakes his head, opens his mouth as he turns left at the light, and a big rig slams into the passenger side of the car at 60 MPH.   
  
He blacks out; probably dies. It doesn’t matter.  
  
Tomorrow’s another Sunday.  
  


—x—

  
  
On one of the days, she figures it out all on her own.   
  
“I know something’s wrong, John,” she insists, blocking his way when he makes a move to sidestep her. “You’ve been acting strange all day, and now I’m picking up—”  
  
His head snaps up, eyes flashing in warning. “You’re using your abilities against me now?”   
  
Her lips seal into a thin line and she steps back likes she’s been hit. Elizabeth’s abilities have always been a sore point with her; she tries so damn hard to control them, but John knows as well as anybody else that sometimes she just can’t. Sometimes her concentration wanders and she picks up thoughts and stray emotions that she never intended to penetrate. In the beginning it used to piss him off – he wanted absolutely _no one_ breaching his barriers to see the beast inside. Lately, though, it hasn’t annoyed him as much.  
  
Still, he doesn’t want Elizabeth to know certain things. At least not today.  
  
“You’ve been projecting,” Elizabeth insists in a tight voice. “Anxiety, fear, aggression—”  
  
“Aggression?” John tries to scoff. “Gee, I’ve never felt that before.”  
  
The nature of his beast is _his_ sore point.   
  
“John, tell me what’s going on.”  
  
He tries to sidestep her again, and again Elizabeth blocks his path. Something in him reacts – that smidgen of control just snaps. Within a blink, he has her body slammed against the back wall, his face now blue scales and alien eyes. She hisses in a harsh breath, the stench of fear flooding the air as she locks eyes with him, and the reptile inside him feeds off it like oxygen.  
  
“John,” she whispers on a shaky exhale. “Calm down.”   
  
He wants to kiss her; wants to fuck her; wants to scream and tear things apart with his bare hands. He wants to _protect_ her, because he doesn’t know how much more of these days he can take. It’s too much, she’s too close, and his feelings project more than he wants to give away. Elizabeth’s eyes mist over with confusion, then clarity as she peels layer after layer of him away. He sees comprehension dawn on her face.  
  
He drops his forehead onto her shoulder, just resting there, trying to get control of himself again. His body is pressed against hers, their weight supported by the back wall of the kitchen room where anybody could walk in and see them. He doesn’t care. Just breathes in, taking in her scent, and when her fingers reach out and hesitantly stroke the back his head, he can’t identify whether it’s a whimper or a growl that escapes his lips.  
  
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothes mindlessly. “Shh.”  
  
Images flood his mind, of all the times he’s seen her die, and Elizabeth stiffens, overwhelmed by everything he’s showing her. He shouldn’t – this isn’t going to make her feel better – but he can’t stop because this has been bottled up inside of him for too long. He needs her to know, to understand, and because he doesn’t dare verbalize any of it today, this is the only way they can communicate.   
  
“I’m here,” she breathes, promising. “I’m safe. Nothing is going to happen to me.”  
  
He wants to bury into her deeper, hold her close and never, ever fucking let go.   
  


—x—

  
  
They go through the rest of the day on guard, but Elizabeth insists – so damn stubbornly – that they go back to the clearing.   
  
There’s another shoot out, and this time it’s close – so close – but she makes it out with nothing but an ugly scrape across the arm and a bruised forehead. He isn’t even the one to save her; she does that herself by using her telepathy to slam the asshole into the side of a tree, disarming him without ever laying a hand on him the entire time.   
  
Afterwards, when he finds her sitting in the back of an ambulance truck with a paramedic stitching up the long cut on her arm, she smiles up at him. “I told you everything would be all right,” she taunts him, more than a little pleased with herself. “You just have to trust me, John.”  
  
He glances away, a smile tugging on his lips because he thinks – foolishly – that maybe today they’ll actually survive this hell intact.   
  
“You all right?” Elizabeth asks.   
  
He snorts. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”  
  
“I’m not the one that’s been Mr. Grouchy Pants the entire day—”  
  
The paramedic cuts in, “I’m gonna give you a shot. It’s gonna sting a little.”  
  
She nods, thinking nothing of it.  
  
On the day she dies from an anaphylactic shock, John realizes that no matter what he does, what he anticipates, what he goes through to protect her, this will never end. Never stop. Not until he figures what’s behind this all.  
  


—x—

  
  
John’s eyes flash yellow at the wrong moment, giving him away. “Beer. And keep them coming.”  
  
Billy the bartender steps back, dropping his dingy towel onto the floor. “We don’t serve your kind here,” he growls. “Get the fuck out!”  
  
“Billy,” John admonishes in a cool voice. “I just want some beer.”  
  
John’s eyes flicker up, assessing the bartender. Billy would probably know how to handle himself in a fight if it came to it. He doesn’t like mutants; neither do the bikers in the back. John debates briefly – as well as he can half-drunk off his ass. Cameron isn’t in yet, so no backup this time. The animal in him could use a little release, though.   
  
But Billy isn’t a bad guy, just ignorant.   
  
“Look,” John tries. “Don’t start anything tonight. Not tonight.”  
  
 _Or any other night I have to look at your ugly mug._  
  
“Get the fuck out,” Billy barks, “Or I’ll make you, freak.”  
  
After a pause, John leaves, amicably and quietly. Elizabeth would have wanted it that way.  
  


—x—

  
  
“—a timeloop, or how you keep changing factors so that Elizabeth dies in different ways each day.”  
  
Rodney adds onto Radek’s ramblings, “It shouldn’t happen like that. The timeline should be consistent. What happens in one day should occur the next unless an outside force exerts influence and changes it. The only X factor we know of is you.”  
  
But he hasn’t caused any of Elizabeth’s deaths in any way, shape or form.   
  
“So the mutant behind the timeloop is the same one that’s changing the factors, so that I can’t save her?”  
  
“It’s our best guess thus far.”  
  
That just pisses John off even more.  
  


—x—

  
  
The bayside is chilly; San Francisco usually is, but especially today.  
  
The long stretch of pebbled pathway leads past a windy curve, disappearing behind a bustle of trees. In the distance, half covered in fog, the Golden Gate Bridge stands looming over a choppy ocean. Bad weather incoming.   
  
“What are we doing out here?” Rodney grouses, hugging his jacket tighter around him. “I have more important things to do than to follow you on some…” John tunes him out; knows the rant backwards and forwards.   
  
They emerge into a clearing at the top, where a thick outgrowth of wildlife has been trampled by frequent human traffic. It’s supposed to serve as nothing more than a footpath, but the remains of a doused fire near the edge hint of something more. This isn’t the sort of place where people are supposed to stop and rest, but somebody did. Recently.   
  
Rodney’s voice comes in, sharp and piercing, “You haven’t listened to a word I just said, have you?”  
  
John sighs, kicks a rock loose and sends it careening across the dirt path. “Yes, I have.”  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Rodney challenges. “What did I just say?”  
  
He quotes the mouthful without blinking an eye. “That you don’t have your winter jacket because I spilled coffee on it the last time, and the one you have on right now is borrowed from Carson and smells likes his mother’s pastries, which is making you hungry and that’s dangerous for your hypoglycemia which you think is starting to act up.” He stops and turns back to Rodney. “And no, we aren’t going to stop for a snack anytime soon. I need you to run a test out here. Several.”  
  
“Out here?” Rodney demands, glancing around the unremarkable place. “Why? What test? What am I looking for?”  
  
John clenches his jaw. He’s told Rodney before – a dozen times over. But explaining things to him always takes hours and John doesn’t want to waste that time today.  
  
“I don’t know,” John eventually answers, glancing away, “Just look for anything strange. Atmospheric composition. Trace readings of the dirt and plant life. Radiation readings. Everything, the works. I want to know if there’s anything strange about this spot.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Because this is the first place she died.  
  
“Because I said please,” John bites out, gaze focused on some distant point in the horizon.  
  
“Technically, you haven’t,” Rodney points out. “What’d you’ve done is dragged me away from my ship and forced me to trudge after you to the middle of nowhere so I can run a bunch of stupid tests. You’re not even telling me why!”  
  
John bends and picks up a used cigarette butt, enhancing his reptilian eyesight until he can pick up the faded traces of lipstick at the edge. “And I want all your tests done by three today.”  
  
“Three?” Rodney protests. “Just feel like making me jump through hoops today, don’t you?”  
  
“No,” John answers, then tries for a flippant smile. “It’s just going to rain at three and I wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”  
  
He starts walking away, leaving a sputtering-in-protest Rodney behind him. “You know, Elizabeth is going to be asking questions about this! You’ll have to answer to her, at least!”  
  
He knows this too.  
  


—x—

  
  
“You ever think about fate?” John asks one day, out of the blue.  
  
Ronon slants him a dubious look.  
  
“Fate. Destiny. How our futures could already be set before us and we’re just on a path, and no matter what we do, what we are, the end result will always be the same.”  
  
Ronon stares at him, unblinking, then sighs as he sits down. “What’s with the philosophical bullshit?”  
  
“Just answer the question. You think fate is final?”  
  
“Doesn’t matter, I suppose.”  
  
“It doesn’t?”  
  
“Naw, man, you live your life like you got choices. Do it any other way, and that’s just plain fucked up.”  
  


—x—

  
  
“I died?” Elizabeth repeats, still in shock. “Yesterday, I died?”  
  
“And the day before, and the day before, and the day before,” John explains tiredly, not wanting to go on because of the bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He hangs his head low and scrubs fingers through his hair. “I know what you’re going to say. I know what questions you’re going to ask. No, I don’t have any proof. Yes, I’m feeling fine. No, I can’t tell you how you’re going to die today, just that you will. No, I don’t know why. Yes, I suspect a mutant. No, I don’t know who. That’s why I need your help.”  
  
Her jaw slackens. “John, I don’t know what to say to that. That’s a lot to take in.”  
  
“Trust me,” he pleads, a little too desperately for his tastes, but he’s had this conversation a dozen times and Elizabeth always buys into him quicker if he doesn’t try and save face. “You have to trust me on this.”  
  
Her eyes shift to the bayside window. “How do you expect me to react to this?”  
  
“We don’t dock today,” he instructs. “You don’t go anywhere without me. I stay glued to you. Understand?” She opens her mouth to protest. “Don’t argue with me, Elizabeth. Not about this.”  
  
Her eyes flash a little with fire. “It’s not that simple. You don’t get to unilaterally make these decisions—”  
  
“Yes,” he cuts in, darkly. “Today, this Sunday, I damn-well do.”   
  
And he realizes that he’ll tie her up if he has to, lock her in a room where it’s just him and her and consequences and issues of trust be damned. At least she’ll be safe. She must see it, too – or maybe sense it, with her abilities – because her eyes darken with awareness and she steps back, afraid – afraid of him.  
  
Maybe she should be.  
  
“All right,” she concedes. “We’ll play it your way today. I’ll tell the others I won’t be going on shore.”  
  
“You won’t be going _anywhere_ without me by your side,” he clarifies with a harsh bark.   
  
His conversion takes place in a blink of an eye, alter ego emerging to the surface. His skin shifts to blue-tinged scales, eyes yellow out, and his fingers turn into claws. The transformation is quick but painful, and as his vision changes and adapts to the reptilian senses, he sees Elizabeth take a step back and turn away. He doesn’t like to transform in front of her but he isn’t holding anything back now.   
  
John’s alter ego may be the one advantage he has in protecting her.  
  


—x—

  
  
It’s raining outside when Elizabeth tells him that Rodney called – nothing special to report. The samples came back clean and normal. John clenches his jaw, skin crawling because that’s another dead-end. And time is running out again; something has to happen. Something always does. He hasn’t moved from her side, but he’s paranoid and angry and the days where Elizabeth lives the longest are usually the days her deaths are the most brutal.  
  
“I need a name,” he says, voice gruff and raspy. “A mutant that knows how to bend time and space, but not like Radek. Something different. It loops over the same day, over and over again, changing variables. There has to be someone that fits that description.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I…”  
  
She waves him forward and then turns on her heels, walking away. She leads him down the narrow pathways of the _Nautical_ until they make it back to her cabin. The room is large – second only to Rodney’s immaculate chambers. Elizabeth lets him in and he follows in quietly, suddenly unsure of himself. Awkward and aware. He watches her as she moves to the safe in the back, turns the combination 3-50-17, and pulls the heavy door open. There are files inside, among other things, but John’s eyes are drawn past the foyer, to the bedchambers in the back.  
  
His mind is sidetracked for a split-second by carnal thoughts he’d die before ever admitting to Elizabeth. It goes without saying that his inner-beast in him isn’t so bashful, especially when it comes to Elizabeth.  
  
“I think I remember someone in here,” she says, digging through the folders. “I just can’t remember his name.”  
  
John settles down in the chair opposite her. “Let’s work quickly.”  
  
She avoids eye contact. “John, are you sure—”  
  
“It’s nearly five, Elizabeth,” John cuts in as he grabs the nearest file. “On the average day, you don’t make it past six in the evening.”  
  
Her mouth clamps shut, face pale. She drops her gaze back to the folders without another word, but he gives her five minutes, maybe six, before she’ll finally manage to recover and start firing away question-after-question again.   
  
But they’re not even halfway through the pile when John lifts his head, sniffing something in the air. “You smell that?”  
  
Elizabeth arches an eyebrow pointedly. “My sense of smell isn’t as keen as yours.”  
  
He enhances his senses, and there it is – the faintest traces of smoke.  
  


—x—

  
  
Her face is charred, unrecognizably so. He doesn’t think even her mother will be able to recognize the remains this time. It doesn’t matter. Elizabeth died after six today; the last flight from Washington D.C. is at seven. Her mother won’t make it to California today.  
  
 _Maybe tomorrow?_ A dark part of him whispers.  
  
“Did you love her?” Cameron asks bluntly, slamming back a shot of whiskey.  
  
John pauses, thrown, then remembers the time when he’d asked Elizabeth if she loved him. No, check that. Loved his _future_ self, the one she met in that alternate timeline where all hell had broken loose after Kolya’s plan. Elizabeth never did give him an answer. And, because of that, he’s always wondered if what she felt for him was nothing more than residue for what she evidently felt for his other self. And she must have wondered it, too, because that _had_ to be the reason she pulled away from him every time John stepped forward.   
  
The specter of his future self has always hung between them, and John hates the bastard for that.  
  
“Did you, man?” Cameron goads again.  
  
John slams back a shot of whiskey and doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “Yes.”  
  


—x—

  
  
He starts acting out on his impulses. He doesn’t even mean to. It just… _happens._  
  
“John, we can’t,” Elizabeth whispers in a breathless voice, the next morning when he drags her into a closet. She forcibly extracts herself from him, and her eyes latch onto his, confused and flustered. Her lips are swollen. “Where the hell is this coming from?”  
  
“It’s always been there, Elizabeth. I’m just finally acting on it.”  
  
She inhales sharply, and her voice drops to a faint whisper, “How am I supposed to respond to that?”  
  
He shoves a hand through his hair in frustration. “With the damn truth. You owe me that much.”  
  
She breathes out a shaky breath and glances away, eyes affixed on some distant spot behind him. It feels like his heart is lodged firmly in his throat, awaiting her response. John reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, letting the touch linger longer than it should.   
  
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he declares, in a voice that’s soft and hard all at the same time. “I’m going to kiss you and I’m going to mean it. So stop me if you want.”  
  
He’ll get her answer that way.  
  
She stares up at him like he’s gone crazy – not just the average insanity, but the kind that requires straightjackets and men in white lab coats. But she doesn’t move away when he closes the distance. Barely even breathes as his lips descend onto hers and then – _boom._ The ground beneath them shakes violently and they are thrown sideways like rag dolls as an explosion from down the hall expands outwards.  
  
He feels the heat coming, knows what’s going to happen, and even as he covers her body with his own, he knows the futility of it all.   
  
They both die before he gets his answer.  
  


—x—

  
  
Elizabeth laughs quietly as she points out the pedestrian crossing the street, the one carrying a large stuffed animal nearly twice his size. John thinks it’s a hippopotamus or elephant of some sort, but he can’t really tell.   
  
He’s too busy distracted by the childish joy on Elizabeth’s face as she whispers, “I’ve always loved stuffed animals like that. Once when I was twelve, my father took Daniel and me to one of those local carnivals. He won me a giant stuffed panda. I kept that thing near my bed for nearly a decade.”  
  
Mentions of her childhood – or anything regarding Elizabeth’s past – are usually few and far between, and he finds himself latching onto the story. “What happened to it?” he asks with a quick grin.  
  
She shrugs, the smile falling from her lips. “I don’t know. I just grew up, I guess, and it lost its place. We have to grow up sometime.”  
  


—x—

  
  
“I need to talk to somebody,” he says, cryptically to Cameron one day. “Do you know any mutants with the ability to manipulate…”  
  
Cameron looks up to give him his full attention. “What?”  
  
“The space-time continuum,” John finishes quietly. “Time-traveling. That type of thing. Besides Radek, can you think of anyone else that fits the bill?”  
  
Cameron stares at him, thrown by the odd request before shrugging and giving it due consideration. He comes up blank. “Ask Elizabeth. She probably knows someone. She has files ten feet deep, a list of mutants and their powers. She could probably help you with it.”  
  
John bites his lips, anxiously. “Yeah, figured.”  
  


—x—

  
  
She’s impaled with a two-by-four, right through her ribcage. It takes half an hour for Elizabeth to bleed out, and the entire time he cradles her in his arms.  
  
“John,” she breathes. “I’m cold.”  
  
“You’ll be all right,” he lies. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”  
  


—x—

  
  
It’s a struggle to get out of bed – to wash his face, brush his teeth and do all the normal things expected of him on every other average day. Even though he’s pretty sure it’s impossible, he feels like he’s got a hangover from the night before. He can’t motivate himself to do any of it, so he just lies there as the soft roll of waves crashes against the _Nautical_ and rocks him back to sleep again. He wakes when there’s a knock at the door, but he just flops on his stomach, drags the pillow over his head and presses it down.   
  
An important question arises: If he held it there long enough, could he actually suffocate himself?  
  
The door opens, and a moment later he hears her muffled but amused voice. “Hey, I’m not paying you to sleep in on the job. C’mon, John, we have to dock within two hours and I want to debrief first.”  
  
He doesn’t budge an inch.  
  
“John,” she suffers a long sigh, “You need to get up now.”  
  
There’s ample pause, and then Elizabeth swings around the mattress to tug down the comforter, exposing him to the cold of the room. It’s immediately followed by a quick intake of breath and the sound of a half-muted exclamation of “oh my go—” before there’s utter silence. It seems Elizabeth has just discovered a key element of John’s sleeping habit – he sleeps in the buff. Completely nude.  
  
When John finally drags his head out from under the pillow, she’s standing there in shock before she finally snaps out of it and whirls around, a hand over her mouth. “Sorry!” she exclaims, high pitched. “I thought you’d have on, y’know, boxers or something. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I never—”  
  
He’s never seen her particularly flustered before – at least not from embarrassment. Her neck is turning red, and even though she’s not facing him, her eyes are squeezed shut tightly. He finds the image it presents incredibly… _cute_ , and for first time in so long, he forgets entirely about all the pressures and anxieties of the day.  
  
He flops over on his stomach, completely unabashed. He scratches behind his ear, stretches his legs, and lazily reaches for his sweatpants. As he climbs to his feet and tugs on his pants, Elizabeth is rooted in the middle of his room like she won’t dare move until he gives her the A-Okay. He comes up behind her, looking to see if she still has her eyes closed. She does.   
  
He can’t help but tease her a little. “You know, Elizabeth, if you wanted a peek, all you had to do was ask—”  
  
“Shut up, John.”  
  
“I mean, now that you’ve seen mine it’s only fair that I see—”  
  
“Shut up, John!” she insists in a tight voice, face flushing. “This isn’t funny.”  
  
“Yes, it really is,” he retorts. “It’s like you’ve never seen a naked man before, Elizabeth.”  
  
“Or just not one with such a skinny ass?” she lobs back.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Though his mood quickly sobers with the thought that maybe this is the only thing they’re ever meant to do naked together. And she isn’t even naked, damn it. Sighing and feeling an odd sting of rejection he can’t place, he moves past her without another word. She must peek again because she quickly catches his arm and tugs him back around.  
  
“Besides,” she challenges with a lift of her brow, “who says I haven’t seen all this before, anyway?”  
  
She walks out the door before he can clarify exactly what she means by that.  
  


—x—

  
  
Elizabeth laughs quietly at something Teyla whispers, and the two women share a look and slide away from the table to finish their conversation in private. (A conversation he knows is at his expense.) He doesn’t bother with the puppy dog eyes today, doesn’t feel like chasing the two to defend himself against the well-meant teasing. Instead, he just watches her without trying to make it too obvious. He likes seeing her like this – happy, carefree, smiling. Her laugh is infectious.  
  
“We should dock within the hour,” Lorne announces, dropping a bag at his feet when he halts by the door. “Hope you guys like fog. It doesn’t look like good weather out there.”  
  
“Fantastic,” Rodney grumbles. “I don’t even have my jacket because this buffoon over here,” he thumbs at John, “ruined mine last week.”  
  
“You can borrow mine, Rodney,” Carson offers patiently. “I have a spare.”  
  
“C’mon, you two,” Elizabeth says, drawing their attention. “Hurry up. I don’t want to waste the day away.”  
  


—x—

  
  
John awakes with a start when the alarm goes off.   
  
Another Sunday.  
  


—x—

  
  
He breaks into her room while Elizabeth is downstairs eating breakfast with Teyla and the others. He walks across and opens her safe (3-50-17) and pulls the files out. He goes searching through them without Elizabeth to point him in the right direction, regardless of the fact that there are too many files and not enough time.  
  
But, at a quarter passed ten, he stumbles on one candidate that fits the bill: Ladon Radim.  
  
“John?” Elizabeth gasps when she finds him in her room going through her things. “What are you doing?”  
  
He gathers the folder and strides towards the door. She steps to block his path, bringing his gaze directly to hers. John knows she isn’t expecting him to step forward into her personal space and her quickened heartbeat is so easy for him to pick up. His senses always enhance around her – like how he always notices her scent lingering in a room long after she leaves; how her touch sears his skin. It’s a marked sign of how, for some reason, the beast within him hates everything, _everyone_ – except her.   
  
He cups the back of her neck and kisses her – just does it.   
  
It’s not soft, it’s not light – instead it’s telling and fierce, and when he pins her against the doorframe he isn’t worried about upsetting her, knows somehow he isn’t scaring her. Of all the people that have ever known about his alter ego, she’s been the one to know it the best. She’s also been the only one to never really fear it.  
  
He pulls back only when there’s oxygen deprivation, and rests his forehead lightly against hers while she catches her breath.  
  
“John—”  
  
He doesn’t let her finish. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry.”  
  
He pulls away and strides out the door, leaving her rooted and frozen in one spot. He has things to do, people to visit. And as much as its rips him apart every time he lets her out of his sight, he can’t stay still any longer.  
  
She dies within an hour; Carson declares it a pulmonary embolism.  
  


—x—

  
  
“John?” Teyla stops him as he leaves the kitchen. “Are you all right? You seem… distant this morning.”  
  
“Fine, Teyla. Just have a headache.”  
  
“I may not be Elizabeth, but it does not take a mind reader to know you are lying. What is it, John?”  
  
He pauses long enough to think of something, then lifts his head to lock eyes with her. “Do you believe in fate, Teyla?”  
  
She doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes. I think that God has a plan for all of us.”  
  
There’s a thick taste of bitterness in the back of his throat. Gunshot. Stabbing. Poison. Electrocution. Suffocation. Blunt force trauma. Once, Elizabeth, an excellent swimmer, drowned in the bay. Is that God’s plan?  
  
After the conversation with Teyla, he goes to the bar per usual. He walks away drunk, with a bloody nose and leaves six men in the hospital.   
  


—x—

  
  
With the first glimpse of Ladon Radim, John knows he’s found his culprit.  
  
There’s a flash of recognition that hits Ladon’s face as soon as he spots John coming through the crowd on Pier 39, and then snap – a flashbulb of a tourist’s camera nearby goes off. John blinks back the whiteness to discover Ladon has taken off, careening through pedestrians like he’s running from the devil himself.   
  
With John behind him, the description isn’t all that inaccurate.  
  
A chase gives way, and five blocks later John has jumped over two trolley cars, scaled the side of a building, and landed in the corner alley where the mutant scent ends. He gets his hands around Ladon’s throat. No finesse used in this questioning at all – this is his man, he knows it.   
  
But John makes a mistake – overlooks a man coming up behind him.   
  
A shot rings out and John feels like a hot white poker was just jammed into his sides. The blood pouring from his abdomen is a second thought; Elizabeth, it thinks. Singular, focused, he remembers the pain. Doesn’t want it again.  
  
He stretches out a claw, and throttles the man before him. “Tell me,” he threatens with a hiss. “Tell me how to save her.”  
  
Ladon smiles with his last breath. “You never will.”  
  
John breaks his neck, another shot rings out, and they both die.  
  


—x—

  
  
Over the next few days, Elizabeth is brutally stabbed in a mugging, burned alive in a fire, and then breaks her neck in a fall down the stairs. John doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.  
  
He can’t stop thinking about Elizabeth, even when he dreams. And the more he thinks about it, the more restless he gets about everything – about this day, about her, about _them_. They’ve been playing this game for so long – one step forward followed immediately by two steps back – and even though they’ve both acknowledged feelings, neither have ever really acted on them.   
  
But now he has nothing left to lose. There are no consequences.  
  
So it’s Billy the bartender that gives him the best advice. “You’re getting a second chance with this girl, right?”  
  
“Yes.” And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth.  
  
“Then what the fuck, man? Quit being a pansy and take advantage of it.”  
  


—x—

  
  
After a beat, she clutches his shirt and tugs him closer, bodies aligned and mouths exploring, and there’s no stopping them now.  
  


—x—

  
  
“Fate?” Radek repeats, shrugging as he answers the question. “It is too unsophisticated, based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe. It’s like… ah, what do you call it? A power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events, defining it as inevitable. Too simplistic in terms. There are models and theories out there that presuppose an established order of things, but with my abilities, I see it from a different point of view. Relatively speaking.”  
  
“Different point of view?” John repeats.  
  
“The only constant thing is here, is now,” Radek answers. "Everything else can change.”  
  
Rodney rolls his eyes as he enters the lab. “Why are you asking us this, anyway?”  
  


—x—

  
  
“We will find him,” Teyla declares, one Sunday after the ambulance has driven away with Elizabeth’s body. “We will find the man that did this.”  
  
He scrubs a hand over his head, eyes vacant. “Sure we will.”  
  
And when he does, Ladon better pray there’s a god, because nothing short of divine intervention is going to prevent John from ripping him apart limb-by-limb. For once, both the beast in him and the man are a united front: Ladon Radim is going to suffer for all of this. John is going to find out why, and how, and make him stop, and then he’s going to kill the asshole with his bare hands. Slowly.  
  
The thought is the only comfort he has until a new Sunday begins and he can see Elizabeth’s face again.  
  


—x—

  
  
Elizabeth’s eyes are squeezed shut as he moves over her body, her breath hitching every time their hips meet. He thrusts, quick and smooth, his body settled heavily over hers on the small mattress in his quarters. John doesn’t know how much longer he can control his inner beast, because Elizabeth like this – open and uninhibited beneath him while he steadily fucks her – has been a dark fantasy of his for so long.   
  
He memorizes the flutter of emotions across her face as he pulls out and pushes back in, small dirty noises of satisfaction escaping his lips as he does so.  
  
“John,” she pleads in a tight voice. “Faster. God, faster.”  
  
 _Jesus Christ._  
  
He bends his head, nuzzles her neck with the scrape of his stubble. With an inhale, he imprints the scent of her like this – the thick swell of sex hanging around them – and promises himself this won’t be the last time. He’ll seduce her every day he has left, just to be this close to her again.  
  
He breathes her name as she begins to come.  
  


—x—

  
  
He gets a phone call from Ladon one afternoon, completely out of the blue. “We really could do with better weather, couldn’t we? I’m getting quiet tired of all the fog.”  
  
It takes a full two seconds before John can recover from sheer blinding homicidal rage. “What do you want, Ladon?”  
  
“For now, I just wanted to know something,” Ladon replies in well-polished tone. “Have we learned our lesson yet?”  
  
“What lesson?”   
  
Ladon sighs. “You see, my position is somewhat awkward. I don’t get pleasure from this task, but we need to teach you a lesson. I’m just making sure you’re well educated.”  
  
“What fucking lesson?” he barks into the phone. “What do you want from us?”  
  
Ladon’s voice comes over, somber and serious. “You of all people should know that if you play with time, you get burned. We found out about your boss; your girlfriend; whatever she deems herself to be this particular Sunday. We know how she did it once – traveled to the future. She saw what happened, and decided to change things. But some things shouldn’t be changed.”   
  
John stops short, jaw clenched. The weighty words reveal a motivation, and that’s when John makes the connection. Ladon may be the bastard behind the time-traveling power, the one making all this possible, but he isn’t the one ordering it all to happen.  
  
“Kolya,” John breathes. “You’re working for Kolya.”  
  
Ladon’s voice comes back pleased, “And give the errand boy a prize. He finally gets it.”  
  
“What do you—”  
  
“Stop trying to prevent what needs to happen,” Ladon interrupts. “A change is coming. One that will better the lives of every mutant on the face of the planet. It needs to happen.”  
  
“A nuclear meltdown that kills millions of lives isn’t—”  
  
“Our mutant brothers and sisters will survive. That’s all that matters.”  
  
And John realizes what this is – their ransom price for Elizabeth’s life.  
  
“Make sure all of Kolya’s plans go off without a hitch, or watch the woman you love die over and over and over again. The choice is yours.” He pauses, before he says one more thing. “This is fate, my friend. Take it from me, you cannot fight that.”  
  
“Ladon?” he replies swiftly. “I am going to kill you.”  
  
Ladon falters on the other end, then recovers. “If you do what we want, you’ll never have to see Elizabeth die again.”  
  
“Don’t say her name,” John threatens. “Don’t even think it.”  
  
Ladon sighs. “Still a Neanderthal, I see. All brute force and no finesse. I’ll give you some more time to think about our offer, then.”  
  
He hangs up.  
  


—x—

  
  
“I have a confession to make,” she whispers in bed one Sunday, eyes fixed on the ugly scar that runs up his torso and over his abdomen. She traces it with her fingers while John waits for her to continue. “This… this isn’t the first time I’ve slept with you.”  
  
It isn’t John’s first time sleeping with her either, but he’s confused about _her_ remark. “What do you mean?”  
  
Her hand is warm like the rest of her body, and when she splays it across his chest he feels his body respond from the inside out. “I...” she sighs heavily. “God, this is difficult for me to say.”  
  
He tucks a hand under her chin and draws her gaze up. “What is it?”  
  
“I’ve slept with you before,” she whispers, then flinches. Stops and starts all over again. “The other you, I mean… the one I met in the alternate timeline. I… slept with other you.”  
  
He can’t speak, doesn’t know how to formulate a response to that. Dropping his head heavily onto the mattress, he stares up at the blank ceiling while Elizabeth gives him a moment to recover. He feels the weight of her stare on her, hesitant and uncertain, but he can’t force himself to regroup for several long moments.  
  
The realization dawns on him that this makes perfect sense.  
  
“Do you believe in fate, Elizabeth?”  
  
She blinks at him in confusion. “What?”  
  
“Fate,” he repeats. “That something that happens is meant to happen, and no amount of meddling or manipulation is going to change the end outcome.”  
  
“Are you…” she stops short, then regroups. “Are you asking me if we were meant to be together, no matter what?”  
  
“Something like that,” he whispers back.  
  
“No,” she answers swiftly, firmly. “Fate is exactly what you make it, John. The decisions we make every moment determine our lives. We can’t think otherwise.”  
  
“You sound so sure.”  
  
“I have to be. I brought us all together to prevent a catastrophe, remember? If I believed in fate, we wouldn’t be here.”  
  
But Kolya’s plans seem so distant now, so far away. As long as John keeps reliving the same day over and over again, a nuclear explosion that happens months from now is purely academic. It feels strange to be so detached from that; stopping Kolya is what brought them all together.  
  
“How long have you done this?” Elizabeth asks quietly, watching him with concerned eyes. “How many times have you lived this Sunday?”  
  
He shakes his head and glances away. “It doesn’t matter. We—”  
  
“John,” she says softly. “How many times?”  
  
He stares at the soft green color of her eyes and is incapable of lying. “I’ve seen you die 54 times. Today will be day 55.”  
  
She’s staring at him like she’s seeing him for the first time – like she can see every emotion on his face and hear it in the waiver of his voice. He isn’t a man of words – usually can’t find them when he needs them the most – but this woman reads him like an open book; always has. Right now, he isn’t hiding a thing from her and the grief rolls off him like waves.  
  
After a pause, she moves on top of him, shifting her weight to take him in. Then she rocks, hands planted against his chest – slow and steady, making it last.   
  
They never break eye contact.  
  


—x—

  
  
It rains. It rains so badly he can’t see two feet in front of him even with his enhanced vision.   
  
He gathers the back of her shirt in his fist and hauls her over, finding her face covered in mud and dark blood. There’s debris everywhere around them from the shoot-out. She coughs up splatters of blood, the red coloring her pale lips and cheek.  
  
“It’s okay,” he soothes, always lying. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”   
  
Her hand is covered with blood when he slides his palm into hers, curling around it and holding on. She can’t speak – just sputters some more as John’s throat closes off. As many times as he’s done this, it’s still as horrific and haunting as the first.  
  
“John,” she cries, and then a few moments later her hand falls away.  
  
He stares at vacant eyes, and feels a cold chill wash over him as he transforms. It’s subtle, natural, he barely even notices the change. Behind him, Carson skids to his knees beside them and begins to work. But it’s too late; it’s always too late. John edges back, quiet and cold, distant. The others break through the side door, more help on the way, but it’s too late. Always too late.  
  
He lifts his head to the clouds above him and lets loose a scream no human could ever produce.  
  


—x—

  
  
Billy grabs the towel, wiping away a puddle of spilled beer before moving away. He mutters a warning about closing time, but John merely lifts another shot glass, salutes once, and throws back the bitter alcohol until he feels it burning a hole through his esophagus. His vision blurs and he steadies himself with a hand on the countertop, waiting for the room to stop swimming.  
  
There’s a mirror behind the bar, one that runs the length of the room and echoes everything back.  
  
“Do you believe in fate?” he slurs, staring at his reflection.  
  
There is no reply.  
  


—x—

  
  
The next time he gets the call, John isn’t so dismissive. “Do you want to know how she’s going to die today?” Ladon asks in a tired voice. He sounds agitated, angry. Apparently Ladon is getting tired of Sundays as well. “It’s a particularly brutal fashion; one I would hate to witness for myself. Shall I tell you?”  
  
John stares across the kitchen table at Elizabeth, smiling and carefree, stealing a croissant from Rodney’s plate. John makes excuses and quietly slides free of the booth, wandering down the hallway.   
  
When he’s alone, he asks, “What do you want from me?”  
  
“Ready to finally play ball?” Ladon responds. “Good, because I was wondering how much more thick-headed you could possibly be about this. There is no saving her. Only I can do that.”  
  
He closes his eyes, pictures all the ways he’s seen Elizabeth die over the last two months of Sundays, and steadies himself with a breath. This is how he has to play it if he wants this to end. This is how it _has_ to end.  
  
“When do we meet?”  
  
Ladon laughs. “You think I’m that stupid? Let’s just say we’ll suffer a long-distance relationship. From now on, you take your orders from me over the phone. Agreed?”  
  
John pauses, then squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out the outside world. “Agreed. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Just leave Elizabeth alone.”  
  
“It isn’t that easy. We’re going to be testing your loyalties. Very soon.”  
  
“Whatever,” John dismisses. “Just stop the timeloops, and Elizabeth lives.”  
  
“Acceptable terms,” Ladon declares. “You’ll be hearing from me very soon with your first assignment.”  
  
“And what about the timeloo—?”  
  
Ladon hangs up before John can get his answers. When John snaps his cell phone shut, he realizes he’s just made a deal with the devil with nothing but a phone in his hand. He glances around, wondering if anybody heard his conversation, but the coast is clear. Ignoring the swell of nausea in the pit of his stomach, he slips his cell back into his pocket and rejoins Elizabeth and the others for breakfast.  
  
Elizabeth smiles up at him. “Change of plans,” she informs him. “We just got a call from San Diego PD. They could use our help down there with a pyromaniac, so we’re skipping our meeting in San Francisco.”   
  
Feeling the faintest flutters of hope, John slides into the booth opposite her. “Good,” he replies, managing to keep his voice steady. “San Francisco looked like bad weather today, anyway.”  
  
He shoves aside the feeling that he’s just betrayed her and saved her all in the same breath.  
  


—x—

  
**Epilogue**  
 _Four days later – Thursday_  
  
Elizabeth laughs in surprise as she stares at his outstretched offering. “John,” she breathes with a grin she can’t hide. “It’s… humongous.”  
  
At the edge of the San Diego fairgrounds, a small girl passing by squeals with laughter and points up at John’s gift in envy. He gives her a tiny wave and then proceeds to deposit the large stuffed panda bear into Elizabeth’s arms, smiling in victory.   
  
She stares down at the thing, and feels an odd sense of déjà vu wash over her. “This actually reminds me of the panda bear my father won me once,” she realizes with a wistful voice, “years back when I still had pigtails.”  
  
John just nods. “It took me three dollars and more hits to my manly dignity than I care to own up to in order to win that prize. Don’t lose it.”   
  
Like she could; the thing was nearly twice her size. Still, it’s oddly sweet of John to go through the whole ring toss game – several times – to win her this. She softens her grin into a smile, and slants him a look. “Well, I’ll do my best to keep it safe.”  
  
He flashes her a proud look as he asks, “Whatdya going to name it?”  
  
She pivots and walks away. “It needs a name?”  
  
“Yes!” he insists as he jogs a few paces to catch up. “If I win you a prize, it’s only appropriate that we honor it with an official name.”  
  
He’s getting a little too cocky for a guy that just won a stuffed animal for her with a game she could have probably beaten in half the time. Still, he’s being – god help her – incredibly adorable tonight and his charm always has a way of working passed her defenses.  
  
“Sparky,” she decides with a nod. “I’m gonna name it Sparky.”  
  
“Sparky?” John repeats in a dismissive tone.  
  
Her eyes narrow in warning. “Hey, you wanted me to name it, so I did.”  
  
He raises a hand quickly, surrendering. Behind him near the Ferris wheel, she spies Lorne and Teyla walking passed a crowd of children. To the left, Rodney bellows loudly in victory when he finally beats Carson in one of those water pistol races. She almost suspects he cheated with his abilities, but decides against voicing the thought. She doesn’t want to sit through an entire evening of John making endless fun of Rodney. At least, not tonight.   
  
Ronon looks entirely out of his element standing in the background – this really wasn’t his idea of a night out on the town when the suggestion had originally come up. Despite its unconventional nature, and that Elizabeth herself resisted to the idea when it had first been entertained, she’s glad they decided to do this.  
  
This group really doesn’t get to have as much fun as it could. Especially lately.  
  
John slips into step beside her as they round the Hall of Mirrors, still noticeably smug from his recent victory. She shakes her head with a mock glare, but then crushes the panda closer to her chest as it starts to slide loose in her hold.   
  
“Okay,” she asks, “Now tell me what this whole night is all about.”  
  
John nearly falters in his step. “What?”  
  
She sighs. “You’ve been acting weird for days now. The constant hovering. The odd looks. Yesterday, I caught you lingering outside my doorway in the middle of the night. You obviously have something on your mind, so spill.”  
  
He doesn’t say a word; doesn’t really need to. She’s more intuitive than she’s previously let on, and though she has no idea what’s going on in his head – even with her abilities – she suspects that these evening events were entirely his idea of a way to unwind. But the question remains – unwinding from what?   
  
John’s been tense for days, and she thinks that tonight is the first time she’s seen him laugh in… what seems like a very long time. Something’s been bothering him; something he refuses to share with her.   
  
She playfully ribs him with her elbow when he refuses to answer. “C’mon, John. You should know better than to try and keep secrets from a psychic.”  
  
He flinches, scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck to avoid eye contact. The sinking feeling that Elizabeth just said something wrong and overstepped her boundaries suddenly crushes the small bout of laughter from earlier. Not for the first time, a quiet sense of anxiety works through her. It’s typical John to keep everything bottled up and sealed tight.  
  
She sighs heavily. “You know what? Never mind. You’re allowed to have your secrets.”  
  
God knew she had hers.  
  
He releases a tense exhale and opens his mouth, when his cell phone suddenly chirps up. She stops, waiting quietly while he answers the phone. Though she’s briefly distracted by the smell of popcorn nearby, her attention snaps back to John when she sees him tense up. His body goes rigid, and the… _vibe_ coming off of him, for lack of a better term, turns hostile.   
  
A second later, he covers it up with a disarming smile and excuses himself with a few words. Elizabeth nods politely, but keenly aware she observes him in the dim light as he walks away. Something suddenly nags at her; something indefinable. She studies John on the phone while he feigns an innocuous conversation, but she can read the tension in his shoulders like an open book. The phone call doesn’t look pleasant, and even from this distance, she can sense the restrained hostility of his alter ego.   
  
A part of her turns concerned – even briefly toys with the idea of eavesdropping on the conversation with her abilities. But she squeezes her eyes shut and battles back the overwhelming tide of curiosity that sweeps through her.   
  
That’s crossing a line, and John deserves her trust and respect more than that.  
  
Repressing a sigh, she pivots on her heels and turns back to the Ferris wheel, watching the motion of it loop-after-loop. Her gaze gets drawn upwards, to a pair of teenagers sitting in a red little box holding hands. It’s a sweet sight; an innocent sight. Except a somber mood washes over her as Elizabeth realizes that she can’t even remember being that young or that innocent. It’s too distant; too remote.  
  
Fate has changed her so much over the years.   
  
When John rejoins her, he’s acutely less enthusiastic than before. “Who was that?” she asks him.  
  
He shrugs. “No one important.”  
  
The boldface lie halts her for a long beat, and she almost calls him on it. Instead she quickly glances back up to the Ferris wheel – to the pair of teenagers. “Do you believe in fate, John?” she asks, completely out of the blue. The moment of hesitation is long, pregnant and telling. She turns back to him, and raises an eyebrow. “Well, do you?”  
  
He eventually recovers, “Why do you ask?”  
  
She glances away again, because honestly she can’t say. It’s just this… _feeling_ she has; the type that usually means something significant. Like déjà vu, or some other abstract terminology that does a piss-poor job of defining her mutant intuitions. He’s hiding something from her, and she can’t turn a blind eye to that. She almost wants to – almost.   
  
But she can’t. It’s not in her nature.  
  
“Fate,” she repeats, still unsure where the question’s coming from. “Destiny. The idea that what happens is meant to happen, and no matter what we do or who we are, that will never change. Do you believe in fate, John?”  
  
For some reason, his answer seems insanely important. Too important for such an abstract question.  
  
He pauses, then answers in a soft breath, “No.”  
  
And Elizabeth realizes he’s lying to her.  
  


—x—


End file.
